Last week was busy with crap work. This week is back to being busy in a good way. Today, I shipped out two books for some last minute Christmas shoppers and a box of goodies for Steve’s folks. I went for a run. I’m going to squeeze in an hour of research before I prep dinner early, because I won’t get back from taking Ian to his therapy session and picking up Steve from the train station until 6:15. After dinner, I’ll finish off my garland that I’m making with vintage wooden spools of thread. (Will do a show and tell later.)
Steve called to say that the London and Toronto offices closed yesterday, and they sent home the trading floor from NYC today. He won’t be going back to the office for a while. Pleeassseee, COVID Gods, do not close the schools.
We are hopefully going skiing in Vermont the first weekend in January. So far, we booked a hotel that we can cancel and didn’t buy lift tickets, because we’re worried that things will shutdown again. But even if COVID goes away, I am not skiing downhill. I’m too old for that. But I might do Cross Country skiing at the Trapp Lodge.
You know things have really gone to shit when Don Trump, Jr. is the smartest guy in the room.
Spielberg’s West Side Story was not as good as the original. The music and dancing did not have the original’s POW and SNAP. And this new version lacked humor and subtle snark of the original.
We’re taking Ian to see the Nutcracker Suite this Saturday. Steve and I are going on our own to check out another private school for him in New Haven tomorrow.
More information might not help students make better higher ed choices. But better transportation might help them out a lot.
bell hooks passed away.
Climate Change’s Effects on 193 Countries.
Cooking: I’m tinkering with this sheet pan chicken thighs recipe tonight. I don’t have peppers, so I’m adding broccoli rabe.
Pictures: Time-Life Series on The Art of Sewing, 1974
Apt. 11d 
Laura wrote, “We are hopefully going skiing in Vermont the first weekend in January. So far, we booked a hotel that we can cancel and didn’t buy lift tickets, because we’re worried that things will shutdown again.”
I’m taking my two younger kids to go skiing with PNW cousins in Idaho in January. My understanding is that Idaho does not shut down.
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South Africa continues to look fantastic.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/south-africa
If you look at the confirmed cases chart, they’re having their fourth big wave of cases, perhaps the biggest one yet. However, looking at the confirmed death chart, this has yet to convert into cases. As Dr. Coetzee has noted, they are 4 weeks into the current surge–if Omicron were especially deadly, we would know already.
It’s time to unplug the Southern Africa travel ban.
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I can’t believe Cornell managed 900 COVID positives in the course of a week in a masked, 97% double-vaccinated community.
Wow.
If they can’t keep a lid on Omicron, nobody can.
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S just texted me that she has tested positive for COVID. (She is in Ithaca; she was at a Cornell student’s apartment a few nights ago for a “small” party.) Not sure she will be able to come home for the holidays.
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Ugh!! So sorry. Hope it’s mild!
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Wendy wrote, “Not sure she will be able to come home for the holidays.”
Oh, man.
The timing on this is really unfortunate.
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Frustrating — Logistics are part of what make all of this so difficult. Easier when they are within driving distance.
Kid at home tested at home yesterday because of potential exposure at his sport (which is also part of an outbreak here, with confirmed omicron). He says the outbreak isn’t directly connected to their team (they did not participate in the relevant tournaments).
My only practical solution is to acquire tests, which I am trying to do. Over 50s are boosted, but not the over 18s, yet.
I am also seeing the day when they don’t choose to come home for the holidays (though mine are currently dating people in their home town, which I had worried about, but does mean that they are more likely to come home).
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bj said, “My only practical solution is to acquire tests, which I am trying to do.”
Whyyyy is this still a problem?
We have one box left, and we’d test more if they were more accessible. They’ve gotten cheaper, but it’s still an investment. We normally just test the sickest person in the household if multiple people are sniffly.
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They are available in our local drugstores, just not easily enough — I bought 10 tests yesterday & today, but had to buy them at two different places. And, the difficulties encourage my hoarding. Ideally, I’d keep tests for each person in the house and replace the ones that gt used. But, I can’t be sure I’ll be able to replace them. And, I’m a classic privileged hoarder in these circumstances.
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“bj said, “My only practical solution is to acquire tests, which I am trying to do.”
Whyyyy is this still a problem?”
This might be why: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/us/abbott-covid-tests.html
Corporations do not have the best interests of the public in mind, only their own bottom line.
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School was cancelled yesterday at one of our district high schools because of a social media threat (not my kid’s). Today, the same school cancelled classes because of a “critical staff shortage”, with a warning that school might be cancelled tomorrow, too.
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Meh.
At least it’s basically the end of term anyway.
What concerns me is the schools that are starting to make noises about late reopening in January.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/12/mask-guidelines-cdc-walensky/621035/
The title is “The CDC’s Flawed Case for Wearing Masks in School.”
Some quotes:
“Rochelle Walensky, marched out a stunning new statistic: Speaking as a guest on CBS’s Face the Nation, she cited a study published two days earlier, which looked at data from about 1,000 public schools in Arizona. The ones that didn’t have mask mandates, she said, were 3.5 times as likely to experience COVID outbreaks as the ones that did.”
Zweig runs through a bunch of issues with the Arizona study. Some of the schools included were only open for three weeks during the study and a number of the schools shouldn’t have been included at all.
“Even taken at face value, though, its findings don’t appear to fit with those from other research. Abaluck’s huge, randomized trial of mask use in rural Bangladeshi villages, for example, estimated just an 11 percent reduction in confirmed symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection among adults wearing surgical masks (and relatively little evidence of any effect for cloth masks).”
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All the studies in that article show that masking reduces covid incidence, though the precise magnitude of the effect might be variable and will continue to benefit from further analysis.
The 3.5 x magnitude in the Arizona study should indeed be examined critically, but the right way is to analyze the Arizona data. If, say, incidence/student/per days of school is a measure you find more relevant that outbreaks, find the data and analyze. Ideally the study authors should make their data available, but the data should be possible to reconstruct from public sources.
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bj said, “The 3.5 x magnitude in the Arizona study should indeed be examined critically, but the right way is to analyze the Arizona data. If, say, incidence/student/per days of school is a measure you find more relevant that outbreaks, find the data and analyze. Ideally the study authors should make their data available, but the data should be possible to reconstruct from public sources.”
Another problem (which is probably mentioned in that piece)–failure to compare community vaccination levels in the Arizona study.
It’s just bad, and Walensky should not have been talking it up.
She was also claiming that masking reduces risk of infection (for COVID, flu, and common cold) by more than 80%, which is not defensible.
We have a situation where the public health establishment keeps setting its credibility on fire and people wonder why a lot of the American public has gotten balky and suspicious about listening to the CDC, FDA and various public health authorities and prefers to listen to various sketchy randos.
The first step toward regaining public trust is for the CDC to stop lying and stop being so gosh darn sloppy.
In related news, I see that a bunch of schools are suddenly going remote for early January.
I was googling “school closures omicron” and got this series of headlines in my google “Top Stories”:
–UNICEF: “Even as Omicron variant takes hold, school closures must be a measure of last resort”
–UN News: “Omicron: School closures must be avoided ‘whenever possible'”
–Today: “Schools Are Closing Across the Country Amid COVID Omicron Surge.”
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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What’s really weird is that (supposedly) masking stops 80% of infections, so masked school kids ought to be just fine. Also, school aged kids have been eligible for COVID vaccination for well over a month. So if masking works and 5+ vaccination is available and works, why go remote?
To the unsympathetic eye, this is all incoherent and ridiculous.
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No, it’s not bad, and all three studies in the article show mitigation with masks,
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Monica Gandhi (MD MPH and an HIV/infecious disease specialist) had some recommendations on Twitter (not linking because it will produce a big block o’Twitter):
“My 8 suggested changes for COVID policy 2022:
1) Boosters: risk stratify, do young males need? Space doses
2) Mask mandates based on hospitalization rates like Marin
3) CDC endorse test-to-stay. schools
4) Masks optional schools 8-12 weeks after availability of child vax (11/4).”
“5)Paxlovid asap
6)Acknowledge natural immunity more like Europe
7)CDC reporting: Better data on severe breakthroughs so can advise boosters, masks, etc.
8) Stop travel bans, harm reduction approach, global equity, acknowledge endemic, prevent illness.”
There’s a lot to unpack there and I wouldn’t endorse mask mandates at this point (it’s not March 2020), but I think I agree with everything else.
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Where are schools closing?
I know about the colleges moving exams online, and sporadic closures — we’ve had one closure district wide for staff shortages, 2 individual schools for school threats, and 2 more individual staff shortages, but no plans for remote.
Right now, they’ll have to make up the missed days.
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bj wrote, “Where are schools closing?”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/missouri-dc-maryland-new-york-city-schools-close-early-over-coronavirus-as-omicron-surges
“In Maryland, at least three schools announced they were closing their doors early after reporting a COVID-19 outbreak, while several schools in the District of Columbia area have also moved to online learning to contain an ongoing outbreak. A few states away, in New York City, the Department of Education has shuttered over 800 classrooms amid a mass surge of COVID-19 cases in the area.”
“School officials in Missouri have also been forced to start the holiday season early, a grim combination of both COVID-19 exposures and an ongoing battle with the state’s attorney general over pandemic mitigation measures.”
There are also staffing problems, too, as previously discussed.
The Omicron panic may all be over in early January, but as we have previously seen, it’s so much easier to close schools than to reopen them. It’s very easy for schools to stay closed.
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https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/maryland/prince-georges-county-schools-coronavirus-virtual-learning-all-schools-go-virtual-after-stark-rise-in-covid-cases-maryland/65-8d29e057-26fa-419a-acf3-3c45ce9991df
Prince George’s County (a mostly black DC suburb in MD) public schools will be virtual until at least MLK Day.
That’s about 200 schools.
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Denmark closed schools 7 days early for winter break because of their rapidly rising omicron rate : https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/12/18/omicron-variant-denmark/
From the article: 2 does offers almost no protection, slightly lower hospitalization so far, positives mostly in their 20s, caseload now 2x what it has ever been before.
From the daily beast article — most schools seem to be closing after outbreaks, not as preventive measures. I don’t see how we can avoid closing schools for outbreaks unless we don’t test or don’t require isolation for positive cases (currently 10 days). The test to stay to allow exposed students to stay is good.
In WA, the statewide rules about instructional hours still apply and are not being waived (yet) so, that will be a bar to closing schools and/or closing buildings and offering remote instruction instead of school. Right now, the days will have to be made up (though if we close for weeks, there will be agitation to waive the instructional hours). The cools shifting to online instruction might be harder to open (but we haven’t done that yet). Though private schools are, including Georgetown Prep.
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I was in NYC at the ballet, in a restaurant, and a mall. Then came home and went to a dive bar to see a band. I think there’s a 50/50 chance that I got it today. I’ll try to get an instant test before Xmas and see my parents.
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bj said, “From the article: 2 does offers almost no protection…”
I wonder–is it that 2 doses offer almost no protection, or that an old second shot offers almost no protection? It might be the vintage of the shot rather than the quantity of shots. (I got this idea from Zubin Damania–AKA ZDoggMD.)
So far, nearly everything I’ve heard about Omicron (except for it being way more transmissible) sounds really good. I especially liked the thing about how Omicron may not attack the lungs as effectively as previous variants. I know it’s preliminary findings–but that would explain why it doesn’t seem to be a big killer in South Africa.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/16/omicron-lung-infection-less-severe-replicates-faster-than-delta-in-human-airways-study.html
“The test to stay to allow exposed students to stay is good.”
Yes!
“In WA, the statewide rules about instructional hours still apply and are not being waived.”
Good.
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Matt Yglesias tweets (in response to some ominous noises from DC authorities about going remote):
“The plan to ensure the continued delivery of education should be to make vaccines available, for free, to all the students and teachers and staff.”
“If they close schools again, I’m going to become the joker.”
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Harvard just announced they are remote for the first 3 weeks of January: https://www.harvard.edu/coronavirus/covid-update-january-remote-learning-work/
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That’s just the winter session kids. Probably very few in number. If they close the public schools around here, parents are going to flip out.
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Maybe parents should be begging everyone they know to get vaxed and boosted. I was a lone voice in the void. In almost every class since Thanksgiving, I told my students to get the booster. I’ve been begging my daughter and my sisters. Now I find out the only ones with the booster are my sister-with-cancer and my mom.
Btw, S’s case has been mild, and she was disturbingly chipper about being “the first” in the family to get COVID. But now her bf has it, so now she feels guilty and apparently her bf’s mom is mad about this. I told her if it were me, I’d feel the same, but I’d get over it eventually. But if they did get married, I’d for sure be mentioning it during the wedding toasts.
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Your daughter didn’t get vaxxed? Everybody around here is triple vaxxed. I think my town is over 90 percent vaxxed. I only know 1 family that refused. But people r going to get sick anyway. We just won’t die with the vax, which is a good thing.
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“Now I find out the only ones with the booster are my sister-with-cancer and my mom.”
AND they chuckle at me when I suggest postponing Christmas. Like I’m not serious.
(Husband and son are both Moderna-boosted because I literally drove both to CVS to make them get it.)
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Wendy said, ” But if they did get married, I’d for sure be mentioning it during the wedding toasts.”
Hee!
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S is vaxed (Pfizerx2) but was not boosted, Everyone in my family was vaxxed before our family trip to NH in August at my insistence, including, all aged 12+, which is now all the cousins except the 10 year old.
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Spouse & I are boosted (I drove distantly for it and am now really glad I did). Kiddos have appointments scheduled, but didn’t find availability until this week. But, boosters aren’t easily available yet — you have to hop on them.
I hope schools only close if they know the virus is spreading at school (i.e. outbreaks at school); they’ll also close here for staff shortages (including for the 10 day isolation), but I think that should be done on school/school basis.
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I’m hearing the same story about long lines for boosters around here, too. Glad we got ours in November.
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I find it hard to get mad about transmission unless the chain can be entirely established (i.e. your D knows she got it at the party, ’cause otherwise people in close contact are likely to have too many other contacts in common to establish the chain of transmission).
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bj wrote, “Spouse & I are boosted (I drove distantly for it and am now really glad I did). Kiddos have appointments scheduled, but didn’t find availability until this week. But, boosters aren’t easily available yet — you have to hop on them.”
My husband was a real eager beaver and got his a while ago.
I got two Moderna shots this spring, so I’m not sure I need a booster. But I’m travelling in January and will be seeing older relatives, and I feel like I probably ought to have the booster working before then, so I’ll probably start trying to get a booster on Monday. We’re not boosting the teens. Maybe in 2022? Our 3rd grader got her first shot in November and if we get her a second shot, it will probably be somewhere in the 8-12 week range (Jan-Feb?) to minimize the possibility of side effects and maximize vaccine effectiveness.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/marty-makary/94315
“I hope schools only close if they know the virus is spreading at school (i.e. outbreaks at school); they’ll also close here for staff shortages (including for the 10 day isolation), but I think that should be done on school/school basis.”
The CDC has finally given its stamp of approval to test-to-stay, so lengthy quarantines for school children are kind of obsolete.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/biden-administration-push-test-stay-policy-keep-kids-school-rcna3190
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The test and stay is fabulous for the exposure for schools, but isolation for 10 days is still required if you test positive. That’s creating havoc in the sports communities, with the breakthrough cases in hockey, etc.
And, we need easier testing
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A Dane is quoted in the WaPo article saying “we’re all going to get it”, as Laura said months ago. If that’s true, the hospital load is the all important variable to watch. Omicron does seem to be phenomenally infectious (71/150 people at a Danish party, got it, in spite of being 2x vaccinated + negative test before the party).
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My mid-20s kid reports everyone she knows knows of 6+ people (in offices or family members) who have come down with Covid, in the last 2 weeks.
Now, it doesn’t make much sense for people who think they have Covid & might be infectious, to be standing on line in the cold. https://nypost.com/2021/12/18/nyc-full-of-hour-long-waits-for-covid-19-tests-during-case-surge/ So, people who want a negative test, to be able to travel, are standing in line next to people who have a fever & cough.
This does not make sense, does it? I mean, it’s guaranteed to infect the uninfected, and to make the infected sicker, thus more likely to be hospitalized.
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Yes. Totally crazy. Btw, I’m hearing that Walmart.com is the best place to get the at-home tests.
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Cranberry wrote, “My mid-20s kid reports everyone she knows knows of 6+ people (in offices or family members) who have come down with Covid, in the last 2 weeks.”
I was just reading somebody on twitter (@CardiffGarcia) saying that “16% of all NBA players have gotten Covid since December started, most of them in the past week.” I cannot vouch for that information but it does feel like things are accelerating right now. The NFL has also just dropped testing of asymptomatic players…which suggests they don’t want to turn up asymptomatic cases.
https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl-covid-19-protocols-194538465.html
Laura wrote, “Btw, I’m hearing that Walmart.com is the best place to get the at-home tests.”
I believe we’ve ordered from them few times.
We’re currently out of tests and waiting for our next shipment to come in…We probably ought to test before we fly in January.
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One of my sisters (not -the-nurse or -with-cancer; the other one) was exposed to Covid the other night, she just found out. I want to postpone Christmas. Of course, I also want my daughter to be with us for Christmas, so I am obviously saying this in my best interest. 🙂
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Wendy said, “I want to postpone Christmas.”
That’s sounding better and better all the time.
By the way, I have been hearing that Omicron has a much faster timetable than our previous variants.
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BIL (married to COVID-exposed sister) woke up sick this am.
TikTok and Twitter are telling me that Omicron is spreading through NYC like a 2021 California wildfire. “If you don’t have COVID, you don’t have a social life” is one tweet I read.
Sigh.
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Wash Po article says that testing right before event (party, visiting parents) makes sense.
There looks like there might be an outbreak at my hs student’s school. He’s tested negative 4 times since he was last at school and he’s getting boosted tomorrow. I’m relieved his wrestling has been cancelled for the week.
And, we”re home testing before interacting with my parents, but I just can’t justify limiting their lives further.
The NYTimes article went on and on: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/07/well/live/covid-rapid-at-home-test.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
But, I took home that 1) test immediately before an event or visiting vulnerable people 2) test 3-5 days after an exposure (if you are vaccinated), taking two tests.
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bj said, “But, I took home that 1) test immediately before an event or visiting vulnerable people 2) test 3-5 days after an exposure (if you are vaccinated), taking two tests.”
It would be easier to follow that advice with a big stash of tests at home…
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I keep doing the-opposite-of-doomscrolling with South Africa news.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-17/s-africa-says-hospitalizations-in-omicron-wave-much-lower
“Only 1.7% of identified Covid-19 cases were admitted to hospital in the second week of infections in the fourth wave, compared with 19% in the same week of the third delta-driven wave, South African Health Minister Joe Phaahla said at a press conference.”
Weirdly, the Brits have been losing it:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/18/uk-scientists-curbs-covid-infections-omicron-deaths-restrictions-sage
UK experts are predicting 600-6,000 deaths a day from Omicron…which would be pretty crazy, given a population 1/5 of the US and given the fact that South Africa has high cases and very low deaths…even after four weeks of Omicron surge.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-africa/
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Closing down the world is deadly. The Wall Street Journal had an article last week on one doctor’s Covid experience. She has had a 300% increase in patient deaths, but none of them died from Covid. The article (or podcast) is devastating: https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/the-shadow-crisis-unfolding-in-one-doctor-clinic/24d59204-d343-491c-842f-13286413a817
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Amy P, interesting reading on the UK prediction: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/my-twitter-conversation-with-the-chairman-of-the-sage-covid-modelling-committee
Writes Fraser Nelson:Revealingly, he seemed to think my question odd: if it’s quite plausible that Omicron is mild and doesn’t threaten the NHS, what would be the point of including that as a ‘scenario’? He seemed to suggest that he has been given a very limited brief, and asked to churn out worse-case scenarios without being asked to comment on how plausible they are.
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I was kind of befuddled why the British seem to be in panic mode, and then I clicked on this:
They’re having 122 cases per 100k per day, with especially hard hit communities having 300-400+ cases per 100k per day–which are case numbers that I have never seen.
On the other hand:
–They are testing a bunch, what with all those stacks of take-home tests we keep hearing about.
–The unprecedented spike in cases is not having any impact on mortality. In fact, mortality is slightly down.
Insert boilerplate about how it may be too early to say–but man, this could finally be the beginning of the end.
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Amy P, according to the UK Covid data tracker, they are currently at 716 per 100,000: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
UK daily deaths per 100k, within 28 days after a positive test: 44.
They have to change the charts to keep up: quote from the site: “ From 21 December 2021, an additional category will be added to the cases map to show 7-day rates of newly reported cases that are greater than 1,600 per 100,000 people.”
For comparison, the US is currently at a 7 day case rate of 280 per 100k, deaths 2.47 per 100k. (data from the CDC data tracker.)
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Deaths peaks about 21 days after cases peak (in the past waves); hopefully omicron doesn’t result in as high peaks of death, but we can’t know yet, because omicron has only recently been dominant. In the US, they are saying 4% of cases 2 weeks ago to 75% of cases now which is science drama.
With that transmittability, it does seem like it could go through the population very fast, so potentially a peak of deaths earlier.
So, what am I doing? not eating out, collecting tests so that I can test whenever my parents visit (we’re not testing everyone in the house, though, but concentrating on our vectors); I’m not avoiding indoor gatherings where everyone is entirely vaxed, and plan to gather with family. Older & Younger are out and about, not quite as normal, but certainly not shut down. Younger was boosted today; older will be later this week; everyone is testing on a regular schedule.
After puttering along at 1-2 cases a week, kiddos high school had over 20 last week
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bj said, ” In the US, they are saying 4% of cases 2 weeks ago to 75% of cases now which is science drama.”
Yeah, that was startling.
“So, what am I doing? not eating out, collecting tests so that I can test whenever my parents visit (we’re not testing everyone in the house, though, but concentrating on our vectors).”
I’m not especially nervous about Omicron’s risk to our family–but at the same time, I feel a bit less eager to invite people over.
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